News reports indicate that NJ Governor Christie is willing to reconsider his opposition to the new rail tunnel under the Hudson River.
Keep in mind, NJ isn't paying the entire $9 billion....they have only committed to $3 billion. The Feds and the Port Authority will pick up the rest (assuming it stays at $9 billion). Since instituting their "Midtown Direct" service, New Jersey Transit’s ridership is up 150 percent. As Alex Marshall, senior fellow of the Regional Plan Association, recently put it, “The most important industry in the Garden State is known as ‘commuting to New York City.’ ”
Joe Mysak, a business writer at Bloomberg News says Chrisite's withdrawal of funds says two things that perhaps we don't want to admit out loud:
"First, it says it’s impossible to monitor or prevent waste, fraud and abuse, even with the example of the Big Dig fresh in mind, and even as we all awaken to the need to pay attention to public finance (things ranging from interest-rate swaps to employee compensation). So why even try? This Hudson surrender says we are helpless to prevent insane cost overruns.
Second, the cancellation of the tunnel seems to say that the Great Recession, at least in New Jersey, will never end. Business will never revive, people will stop moving in, property prices are going to collapse. Incessant doom-mongering is a favorite pastime of bloggers who want to make it onto business television with their grimmest prognostications."
Consider the story of one major piece of infrastructure.
Initially, neither of the two municipalities concerned wanted the project built. A construction accident in its first months killed the designer. His replacement soon afterwards was crippled in another accident, and couldn’t be on site for most of the construction period. Construction was delayed to the point that the trustees voted on whether to fire the chief engineer.
Problems arose when bedrock was determined to be 30 feet deeper than expected at one end of the project. Design decisions were question when the engineer decided to build with an overly large safety design factor. The City’s most infamous political boss refused to let the project proceed until he was given a seat on the board of directors.
For it’s entire length of its construction, the project was threatened by strikes, financial irregularities, a worker-safety crisis, explosions, a fire, and a strange illness caused by working under increased air pressure. 27 people were killed during construction. A fraudulent subcontractor who supplied bad steel was indicted and convicted. Politicians and editorialists howled, throwing around words like “boondoggle.” It took thirteen years to build.
One week after the opening, a rumor that the structure was about to fail cause a stampede in which 12 people were killed.
Originally budgeted for about $5 million, the final cost was $11 million, plus $4 million for land acquisitions. The project was the Brooklyn Bridge.
I can't afford, nor do I want to pay for your tunnel.
jud
It seems that Governor Christie is working to get a big mess under control. Once he gets it under control then projects of this sort can be reconsidered.
I'll get to that point in a moment. But my point was, we are talking about NJ's governor, whose state is directly affected by the tunnel, not wanting to pay what was committed to be his state's share of the funding......his citizens are those most likely to benefit. Employment and the economy being what it is, there's not a lot of New Yorkers commuting by rail into New Jersey to work....with a couple of notable exceptions, the rush hour is most definitely one-sided in the NY direction.
With regard to you not wanting to pay for our tunnel, well I'd guess most people here in New York don't want to pay for Oregon projects either, but this is how the system works, and how the money is allocated. If you think it's unfair, write to your Senator or Congressperson.
But before you do, , let's look at how much federal tax money is paid to the US Treasury by NY and NJ residents as opposed to Oregon residents. I'd be willing to be the numbers are not near equal.
In 2007, New York State residents paid $12,679 per person, and New Jersey residents paid $14,008 (5th and 4th ranked respectively) while Oregon paid 6,262 per person ranked 29th).
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_tax_revenue_by_state
In total amount paid, NY is 2nd and NJ is 6th, while Oregon is 28th. Don't NY and NJ deserve to get that money back in terms of financing vital projects?
After all, I am sure some of my tax money has paid for Oregon projects. For example, ODOT has more than 200 projects funded in part through ARRA federal monies.
Some of them are:
The High Risk Rural Road Program called HR3 in Oregon. The Scenic Byways Program, the Emergency Relief Program, the Covered Bridge Program, the Surface Transportation Program, the Local Bridge Inspection program, the Oregon Wave Energy Trust, the U.S. Forest Service Hazardous Fuel Reduction projects, the Oregon Transportation Infrastructure Bank (OTIB). Just to mention a few.
As I said Sicilian, it maters not a twit what has been the norm. I can,t afford to pay more into such projects, this country is not only broke, it is deep in debt and you can't spend your way out of debt. If you have used up all the reserves, leaving nothing to mortgage, you are done. The Governor of N.J. is, or was looking out for the future of his state.
jud
Jud
You often seem to have a "doomsday" kind of outlook. So let me ask this:
Right now, there are two 100 year old tunnels, that are filled to capacity. If something catastrophic happens (for example, there are projects on the boards to place concrete mats over the tunnels so that they won't be susceptible to terrorist bombs), what will happen to the thousands and thousands of people who commute to Manhattan through these tubes every day?
And will the solutions be more or less expensive, especially in the long run?
Benefits? Here's just one factor that no one talks about: Real estate experts estimated homes in North Jersey within two miles of a train station would increase in value by $19,000, and homes within walking distance of a train station would increase by an average of $29,000. The cumulative increase in home values in the region was estimated to grow by $18 billion over eight years as a result of the tunnel project.
Another: Industry experts predicted the tunnel project would create 6,000 construction jobs through 2018, with 3,000 coming from New Jersey and the remaining coming from New York. Work had already begun on two or three contracts, including a new bridge to carry a major highway over the new track approach, and now workers will be laid off, unless the project is resumed..
NJ Transit reported a 6.1% increase in rail ridership across their system, reaching 78.5 million passenger trips. Employment is expected to grow from the current 2.7 million to 3 million in midtown Manhattan, while in the wider area surrounding the Hudson employment is estimated to grow from 9.6 million to almost 11 million by 2025. If creating jobs is something we want to do, this tunnel is nothing but help in that direction, both in the construction and long term outlook.
If this project isn't an economic stimulus, I don''t know what is.
> In 2007, New York State residents paid $12,679 per person, and New Jersey residents paid $14,008 (5th and 4th ranked respectively) while Oregon paid 6,262 per person ranked 29th).
That just means that people in New York and New Jersey, on average, make quite a bit more than people in Oregon. After all, we all pay the same federal tax rates.
Jud
> If this project isn't an economic stimulus, I don''t know what is.
We just forked over nearly $800 billion for stimulus. Don't get me wrong - I understand the benefit of some borrowing for stimulus spending, but not without limits. At some point somebody has to say "no mas".
The project sounds like a good one. It will be a good one a couple years from now, too.
The right wing seems to have a fundamental lack of understanding of how the economy works. The economy works by having money change hands. Money in motion is what drives things.
Here's the analogy: Essentially, they want to stop putting coal into the furnace that drives the steam turbines that generate the electricity that makes everything work.
Concerned about debts and deficits? Who isn't? But the debts and deficits are NOT going to be repaid and will continue to increase if the economy is crashed. And the economy WILL NOT recover when the right wing wants to shut down the very thing that's still keeping it going.
Private sector should indeed be the answer, but for the last 3 years + private sector has completely failed us. By continuing to lay off, by continuing to outsource, by continuing to widen our trade deficit, by continuing to dismantle our manufacturing base, even when they are posting profits and jacking up executive pay, they are undermining this country and its' ability to drive a robust economy. And that's a far greater impact and issue than federal government, given federal government only represents around 3% of the economy. And here, the right wing wants to pander even more to those who want to continue to outsource and lay off.
Mark
The project will NEVER be cheaper than it is right now.
In other tunnel news
Swiss complete world's longest rail tunnel
By Thair Shaikh, CNN
October 15, 2010 9:10 a.m. EDT
(CNN) -- The longest railway tunnel in the world was completed on Friday in Switzerland when the last two meters of rock were drilled through.
After 14 years of construction the 57 km (34 miles) of the Gotthard Base Tunnel in the Swiss Alps was finally completed when a giant drilling machine nicknamed Sissi cut through the last slice of rock to connect both ends.
After the final breakthrough, 50 miners carrying flags reprsenting the regions of Switzerland involved in the construction walked through the opening, Rahel Probst of AlpTransit Gotthard, told CNN.
"It all went very well, the drilling machine went through the rock and the tunnel was there," said Probst.
The tunnel is just over 4 km longer than the Seikan rail tunnel in Japan, which at 53.9 km had previously been the longest rail tunnel in the world.
Completion of the Gotthard Base Tunnel will cut the travel time between Zurich and Milan in Italy by 60 minutes to two-and-a-half hours and provide an easier and more economic route for heavy freight trains.
The tunnel -- which is in fact composed of two single-track tunnels -- cost $10.6 billion (£6.6 billion).
Since the first preparations for the tunnel were laid in 1996, over 2,500 workers have taken part in its building according to AlpTransit Gotthard, the company constructing the tunnel. It is due to be operational by the end of 2017.
Freight traffic in the entire Alpine region will grow by as much as 75 percent by 2010, according to a study by the EU Commission.
And according to AlpTransit Gotthard, the flatter route of the rail link "will allow fast, economical freight transportation."
"Only by upgrading its railway infrastructure can Switzerland meet the rising demand for freight transportation and the increasing needs of customers," according to an AlpTransit Gotthard statement.
Without commenting on the merits of any particular project, I wonder why it is that we pool the money from all the states and then send it back to states to use. People talk about big projects "and we can get Federal money to help" as if that money was free. Everybody is deciding how to spend everybody else's money.
Is there a benefit in concentrating the decision and management power in DC? Would it be more efficient to keep more of that money in the states and let them decide how much to tax and spend?
>New Jersey Transit’s ridership is up 150 percent.
This is one of those statistical citations that I find confusing. Does it mean that ridership is 1.5 times what it was (a 50% increase), or 2.5 times what it was (a 150% increase)?
Jim, that's one of my pet peeves also. An increase should be what is added, so that would mean 100% + 150%. But a great many people use the other non-mathematical meaning so you can't trust the intention on anything over 100%.
In other tunnel news
The Swiss tunnel just completed cost $10.6 billion for 34 miles (including cost overruns of nearly $1 billion).
Now a more detailed analysis should be done, but consider that the NJ/NY tunnel is costing at least $9 billion for just over 3 miles.
Okay, of course the NJ/NY tunnel is 50 % under water, and the drilled rock disposal is more costly due to haulage needed to take the rock out since the surrounding areas are urbanized..
In addition, as far as I can see, the Swiss tunnel doesn't have a large terminal station inside of it, but I am wondering why such a large cost per mile differential.